If you experienced issues with any of the error codes mentioned above, which resulted in corrupted saved games, you can restore your corrupted saved game files by following the steps below:
Step 1: Find your saved game files
Step 2: What you should see
In the Saves folder, you will see other folders that correspond to all your saved games. Each saved game created prior to World Adventures should have the following three types of files:
Error Codes 12, 13 or 16, are usually caused by corrupted .sims3 and .sims3.backup files. The .sims.legacy file should not be corrupted. You will use your uncorrupted .legacy file to restore your corrupted saved game files.
Step 3: Restoring your files
Please note: If the .legacy folder does not exist please use the .backup folder (instead of the .legacy folder) in the steps below.
Your saved game files should now be restored. As the end result, you should see a .sims3 file. You can now proceed to play The Sims 3 or World Adventures, but make sure you have updated to the latest patch before you play.
(A new .sims.backup file will repopulate once your start playing again.)
So....what if, in my saves folder, there is no .backup or .legacy? All I have is 'recentgamename'.sims3.bad and a sid.sims3.bad file. I've searched everywhere, no file exists by those names so...I take it this is either an Origin problem or an extra SSD problem, in my case, and everything Ive built and created is null and void? Which I'm actually used to these days. heh
Seems the only way I can play my sims3 is to leave it running, minimized or otherwise. ☹️
.bad are no good it meant either the save didn't save right or corrupted
your saves-saved game should look like this
my saved game is blue highlight the back up red highlight
also this bit is important open the recentgames folder if any files are in there delete them
while playing files do build up in there that's normal BUT once we're done with the game saved/exit/quit those files in that folder empties out and should not been seen
one thing you could try if you wish to is see if you can rename the .bad one by carefully editing out .bad and rename the save completely to something like test.sims3 launch and play if all is well at that point then re-save with a new name and i think if it where me i'd save a copy of my sims and lot to the library use the export button to share them but not actually upload them go to the exports folder and save a copy of that somewhere else so i would at the least have my sime to install again if something else went wrong
once you rename one of your .bad folders delete the .bads they are no good
Many thanks for taking the time and going into such detail! I took your advice and renamed the file. Simple as that. Just removed the .bad. lol
Occam's razor. 🙂
